My Latin teacher is an odd breed. She is a feisty little woman who takes any chance she can get to talk about how kids these days have it so much better than she did as a brilliant, determined young woman in Jamaica.
She has recently begun to remember my name and I have only been in her class for 3 years. She makes up a name for everyone else so I count it somewhat of an honor.
There is one thing, though, that for the past few weeks has baffled me completely.
My desk is directly across the room from hers and I am daily confronted with the view of a large computer monitor which hides the entirety of my teacher. Occasionally a small head will pop out from behind and interject something which no one in the room understands.
Beneath the desk I see feet that just seem to be content with having won the victory of reaching the floor. Beside them is a pile of shoes.
This pile of shoes bothers me immensely.
I could understand, though it would be a stretch, why someone would have a pile of shoes at their workplace if the shoes were all of a different variety. For instance a woman imprisoned in her 4 inch heels might want to slip on a comfortable pair of house shoes while typing away at the computer, or a runner may want to slip on a pair of running shoes to hit a few miles during their lunch break.
This is not the case with the pile of shoes that has accumulated under my Latin teacher’s desk.
They are all pretty much the same.
I know I am a guy and therefore do not know the slight nuances and variances present in female footwear, but I know enough to know that they all teacher appropriate brown shoes at varying heel heights. There are at least 4 or 5 pairs of shoes down there in addition to the ones on her feet which all look remarkably similar.
As I sat in class pretending to translate Vergil, I became bothered as to the cause of these shoes being where they were.
I began thinking of all these scenarios that would explain this phenomenon but none would suffice. Could my teacher actually have forgotten to wear her shoes home one day and be thus compelled to bring a new pair the next morning? Had this happened every day this week?
Was she trading shoes on the black market?
Or perhaps she is an elf who is simply catching up on her shoe making quota for the month.
I’m sure there is a logical solution for this but I sure can’t think of any. My inability to solve this problem directed my thoughts toward, well, my other thoughts. I began wondering why I wonder and the things I wonder about.
I spent so much time trying to solve a problem that I am sure has a very practical, reasonable, and boring answer yet I rarely wonder at the God who so perplexes my mind and is the ultimate answer to everything I could ever ask. I will spend the rest of eternity wondering about God, poking and prodding at everything I once knew, and daily discovering the previously unknown and still not be able to fully fit God in my head.
When was the last time I was so unsatisfied with what life on Earth could bring me that I begged to know God just a little bit more? Have I become so content with only wondering about the things that I think deal with me that I forget to ask God how He is doing today?
It sounds like a silly thought but have you ever stopped to think about the infinitesimal things God has done just today before you even had your morning coffee?
There is a reason why we are unsatisfiable beings, why it takes so much to come close to filling our satisfaction. We were created to be in a relationship with the one thing in the entire universe that is more infinite than our imaginations. Eternity is a long time to get to know someone, and we wont even get a fraction of all God is. He is that big. That’s why we have forever.
And so I have realized my frivolous ponderings, which are the result of my incredible desire to do anything but translate Classical Roman poetry, are really just instincts originally designed to get me closer to God. He knows everything about us, now He just wants us to return the favor.
